The article goes in details on the importance of closed captioning and closed captioning services

What is captioning?

Captioning is the demonstration of spoken dialogues, scenes, contexts, or music present in the video content in the form of written text. At a glance, the importance captioning gets might seem overhyped, but the statistics are clear (and we will be discussing them), captioning helps garner more viewership and thus sales. This article is aimed at explaining the importance of closed captioning in the overview of video content making.

Let’s Look at Some General Statistics:

The Nielsen poll revealed that an average American in a day spends close to 6 hours of their internet time watching videos only. As such companies have tried to ponder towards this audience base with video advertisement. Another glaring statistic – About reported 500 million viewers to watch 100 million hours of video content on Facebook daily. Among these 500 million viewers, American Press Institute reported that 85% of the videos are being watched without sound.

Facebook for business conducted research that showed 80% of viewers reacted negatively to video ads that played loudly, urging advertisers to caption their videos. They also found that captioning increases the average view time of ads by 12%, some advertise citing captioning increased video viewership by 25%.

Now Statistics on Captioning

Necessity by law: The 2010 Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) require Video programming distributors (VPDs) to close caption their video content. This also includes those videos shown over the internet after having been shown on the TV. Also, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a law that requiring places of public accommodation to be made accessible to those with disabilities.

Quality of Good Caption

The FCC requires captions to have four qualities – Accuracy, Synchronicity, Completeness, and Placements. The subtitles should provide proper spelling, timing, and grammar. It also requires synchronous run between content and captions (with a little leeway provided for live captioning). FCC also demands completeness of captions from the beginning of the program to the end and placement of subtitles such that it doesn’t obstruct the on-screen content.

Wide-Ranging Benefits

The fact that laws are made to address accessibility to those with disabilities, however, doesn’t diminish the importance of captioning. The European federation of hard of hearing people (EFHOH) lists following to be the benefits of subtitling a video:

– Benefits everyone hard of hearing, especially the elderly population – considering 5% of the world has a problem with hearing
– Helps in improving reading level among children
– Helps improve access to language among deaf children
– Improves the understanding of language among foreign nationals and second-language speakers
– Benefits bilingual, sign, and spoken language speakers
– Helps in removing social barriers
– Captioning with Online Closed captioning services
– You can enjoy the benefits of captioning by employing online closed captioning services.

Best closed captioning services are known for their attention towards all the parameters set by FCC. Captioning services arrange for captioners who are well versed in different dialects, slangs, and cultural references helping you achieve the coveted global reach.